Category: Shops & Markets

Venice revisited: shopping, lunch and two dinners

That’s not two dinners on one night. Obviously.

Our partner in crime on this trip was Alison, chef of her own restaurant in Norfolk for many years.

It was her first time in Italy and, as a fellow food obsessive, I was excited to show her the markets. Her husband declined to join us, knowing that food would be the dominant subject of conversation.

He was right. Here we are, photographing Puntarelle (it’s a chicory, dressed with anchovies and garlic and…. alright, we’ll stop now).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Rialto and discussed the price of fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We decided against the Goby,

 

 

 

 

 

 

but it was worth it for people watching,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then lunch at Bancogiro, site of the world’s first public merchant bank. Their terrace overlooks the Grand Canal, a few steps from Rialto Bridge.

There’s a menu, but it’s better to go into the bar and choose your cicheti from the glass cabinet, order a glass of wine, (or it’s always Spritz o’clock) and they’ll bring it all to your table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner at Osteria alle Testiere, where ‘it’s always SHOWTIME!’

Alle Testiere is an absolute legend. It’s one of those restaurants where the guests are eager to impress their hosts.

It’s essential to make your reservation well ahead. We like to book for the second service, and we’re usually the last to leave.

It’s tiny, founded 33 years ago by Luca di Vita and Bruno Gavagnin, who were formerly head waiter and chef respectively at Corte Sconta, renowned for its seafood.

It’s a long menu. Fish is the point here, they’re closed on Sunday and Monday, because the Rialto market isn’t open.

Luca took our order:

‘Three turbot? I hope we have enough’.

After dinner, Ali engaged Luca in conversation.

‘Bruno goes to Rialto every day, he’s like a child in a sweet shop, he wants to buy everything’.

Ali confided that in her restaurant she listed three choices for each course on her menu.

‘That’s my dream’ said Luca, ‘and the same for the wine list – just three that will go with anything you order’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With that in mind, we ordered three desserts: pannacotta, zabaglione and a glorious dark chocolate mousse, swimming in a lagoon of Amaro.

Alle Testiere is open for lunch, and two sittings in the evening (book it as soon as you’ve booked your flight).

Trattoria del Local

Ali flew home the next day, and we decided to try the recent offshoot of Ristorante Local, which opened ten years ago and now has a Michelin star.

The young owners, Benedetta and Luca Fullin, were looking for somewhere nearby to store wine for Local, but when the opportunity came up to buy the premises from Olive Nera, the restaurant next door, they couldn’t resist…..

It’s pretty inside and, like Testiere, it’s small.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wine list offers wines by the 125cl glass or 250cl carafe; the full list is available by scanning a code to your phone (a skill beyond my pay grade).

We had a vermouth, ‘classic from Turin’, and a glass of sparkling Franciacorta as aperitifs, then shared a carafe of ‘Giulietta’, a Garganega/Traminer blend; golden nectar, redolent of greengage, melon and honey.

Starters were a delicate snapper mousse, and an exemplary vitello tonnato.

 

 

 

 

 

Mains were lagoon fish with a rich stew of tomato, onion and capers.

I asked for a glass of light red wine, and was recommended a Carmenere by Inama, a favourite producer of fine Soave.

We shared a selection of hard cheeses, then a ‘Bonet’, a dark chocolate crème caramel. I couldn’t resist the waitress’s recommendation of a 10 year old dry Marsala; ‘With the Bonet it’s the end of the world’.

To finish, I was intrigued by Grappa di Tabacco.

Benedetta suggested a smell, ‘for you to understand’, and offered me a sniff of the cork and the open bottle.

Reader, I inhaled it, and accepted a glass. It was the colour of polished brass, quite fiery and the taste had something in common with a smoky Islay whisky.

It may have been my imagination, but it reminded me of the mild hallucinogenic effect of your first cigarette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benedetta smiled; ‘as an ex-smoker I don’t want to like it. But I do’.

Opened early in 2025, it’s still being checked out by locals, a lot of whom were clearly in the restaurant business. I think we were probably the only non-Italians there.

As we left, the chef was enjoying a fag break (the real thing) with his mates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full disclosure:

We spent more on dinner for two here than we had for three the night before at Testiere, but we did drink very well.

We were over excited, and turned right out of the restaurant – we should have gone left.

It’s easy to take a wrong turn in Venice.

http://www.osterialletestiere.it/

Starters & pasta 26 – 28 euros. Mains 32 euros. Desserts 12 euros. Extensive wine list from 24 euros a bottle.

http://www.trattoriadellocal.com/

Starters & pasta 16 – 25 euros. Mains 24 – 28 euros. Wine from 27 euros a bottle. Grappa di Tabacco – did I really?

Santa Marta farmers’ market, a hidden gem in Venice

Approaching to land at Marco Polo for a few days in Venice, I was leafing through ‘Walks in Venice, in the footsteps of 9 locals’ and came across The Mercato de Santa Marta, ‘a small but lively local market’ where every Monday morning, farmers from the mainland come to set up their stalls.

The book is by Katia Waegemans, founder of The Venice Insider, a travel blog for frequent visitors to Venice. It’s available from Amazon, the link is at the end of this post.

We landed on a Saturday in October, which gave us a day to settle in and be ready to find the market. The Santa Marta neighbourhood is in the depths of Dorsoduro.

Dorsoduro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed Tramontin, one of the few remaining boatyards that specialise in repairing gondolas, then through the campus of Venice University, where we paused for coffee in the student canteen before proceeding into a complex of unprepossessing halls of residence.

Gondolas at Tramontin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Old ladies were walking towards us with laden shopping trolleys, which is always a sign that you are getting close to a market; sure enough we rounded a corner and there it was. We headed for the busiest greengrocers’ stall, hoping we would be served eventually.

Fortunately a young student shared the helpful information (in English, she was Italian/Australian, an interesting mix) that we should take a ticket from the red dispenser (there’s one on every stall) and wait for our number to be called.

We came away with a good haul of fruit and veg for just 17 euros.

We were recommended to try ‘The Devil’s Beans’ with instructions on cooking by the cheerful stallholder, who threw in some parsley and sage to complete the dish.

Approaching Santa Marta

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoppers were a mix of students and locals, I think we were the only non-Italians there. The quality of produce was excellent, and prices were very reasonable.

The plant stall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We picked up some pork and chicken, salame, cheese, buffalo pannacotta, and a beautiful yoghurt with forest fruits.

Best of all, I spotted ‘Puntarelle’, a salad vegetable that’s only available for a limited season, and rarely seen outside Italy.

Puntarelle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After shopping, lunch would be our reward

We decided to award ourselves a snack lunch of tramezzini, little sandwiches stuffed with various fillings, and headed across the Giudecca Canal to the Bar Palanca.

I’ve always been a little concerned about the Palanca since Time Out magazine listed it as one of its ‘bars with the best views in the world’.

I needn’t have worried.

We were greeted by a lovely waiter who’s been there for years; he fist-bumped each of us in turn, and firmly upsold the specials of the day to share. We were putty in his hands.

The star dish was an antipasto of tuna tartare, baccala mantecato (whipped salt cod), silver anchovies with pink peppercorns, and sarde in saor (sardines with onion, vinegar and golden raisins).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My enquiry about the delicate spicing of the tuna was met with the inevitable response:

‘It’s our secret mix’.

You can reach the market by vaporetto from the Grand Canal to the Santa Marta stop, or walk as we did from the San Basilio stop on the Giudecca Canal; cross to Palanca on the opposite side.

A postcard from Turin

History is close to the surface

The emblem of Torino is a little bull. I happened upon this one, looking down at me from the wall of a house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turin was founded by the ancient Romans; Porta Palatina is a fragment of their city wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed on Via Garibaldi, a pedestrianised shopping street in the Centro Storico.

Exploring on the first day, I could hear a drumbeat in the distance. As the drums came closer, fifers started to play ‘The British Grenadiers’, a bizarre choice of tune in this Italian city.

The banner commemorates local hero Pietro Micca, who sacrificed his life in 1706, defending his city against the French.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City of culture

Since the Winter Olympics of 2006, and with the declining importance of industry, Turin has sought to attract tourism. There are free walking tours available from Via Garibaldi, and you’ll happen upon small scale but interesting exhibitions, such as Gli Italiani at the Palazzo Falletti in Barolo, just off Via Garibaldi.

‘The Italians’ was a project undertaken in the sixties by French photographer Bruno Barbey, documenting the lives of ordinary Italians in a country still emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War.

Palermo 1963

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Venezia 1962

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are grand museums and galleries too; Turin is home to a collection of Egyptian antiquities second only to the museum in Cairo, and an extraordinary museum of Italian cinema.

 

Where we ate, what we drank

The restaurants we went to were inexpensive and not touristy. Wines start at around 20 euros a bottle, and are often available in carafe.

La Taverna dei Mercanti 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A cosy place with a menu largely based around thinly sliced veal and beef: carpaccio, brasato, tonnato.

If that weren’t confusing enough, I ordered a grappa. Good job I didn’t ask for a large one….

An elegant pour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tre Galli (three cockerels, not to be confused with its nearby sister restaurant ‘Tre Galline’, three chickens) is a bit of a hipster place near Porta Palazzo market. The highlight for me was this dish of pasta with beans, chestnuts, pumpkin, gorgonzola and a wine reduction; like a big warm hug on a chilly November evening. We followed with a Zabaglione per condividere (a handy phrase, meaning ‘to share’).

Pasta Garfagnano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pino & Pino was recommended by Giuditta, the owner of our apartment, as somewhere she eats regularly.

(She also has accommodation for skiing and sent me loads of photos, please DM me if you’re interested, and I’ll put you in touch).

We started with a foaming carafe of Frizzante, then demolished a bottle of red Dolcetto.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was Carciofi (artichoke) season, and there were three specials on the blackboard. We had these ‘fritti’ and a salad of thinly sliced raw artichokes with lemon juice and shaved parmesan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone for tennis?

I can recommend Turin as a destination for a city break, there’s plenty to see (and eat!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ATP tournament is back in 2026, and we’re tempted to go for a return match….

Turin: searching for markets

The beauty of renting an apartment in an Italian city is that you have your own front door key, and a kitchen.

We based ourselves in a well appointed apartment on Via Garibaldi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even if you don’t want to do any complicated cooking, you can buy some exceptional salame, fresh pasta, cheese and fruit – you’ll even pick up some very acceptable wine for around €5 a bottle.

Turin used to have a reputation for being an industrial city, famous for the Fiat factory and little else, but it’s also the capital of Piedmont, a region with a rich agricultural tradition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the home of the Slow Food movement, which celebrates small scale producers.

Opening ceremony at the Slow Food festival, 2016

Residents still do their shopping at food markets, and there are excellent independent shops.

Porta Palazzo is the largest outdoor market in Europe and one of the oldest, attracting 100,000 visitors a week. Located on Piazza della Repubblica in the city centre, it consists of roughly half food stalls and half clothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are three permanent food halls on the perimeter; the fish market has closed since I was last there in 2016, but there are still fish vendors in another building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best of the three is ‘L’Antica Tettoia dell’Orologio’, with a distinctive clock on its glass and iron façade. Inside you’ll find butchers (including horsemeat), cheese, and all kinds of speciality delicatessen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind it is a little gem, the covered farmers’ market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Mercato Centrale’ opened in 2019 on the northwest corner of the piazza. It’s a food court with a long bar at the centre, and plenty of choices for a lunch or snack: Brazilian or Moroccan food, a seafood bar, and of course food from the Italian regions. It was packed on Sunday, easier to negotiate the following day.

Upstairs there’s a cookery school, and a fashion mall.

The central bar at Mercato Centrale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a counter devoted to the local Agnolotti del Plin (see my previous post, weren’t you paying attention?). ‘Plin’ are smaller than ravioli, and filled with meat – but I’ve never seen them offered fried before.

I was looking for something a little lighter.

I chose a warm focaccia with guanciale (cured pork cheek in melting slices) and potato, from a large bakery stall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercato Centrale has outposts in Florence, Rome and Milan.

You’d think Porta Palazzzo would be enough for any city, but no. I was struck on this visit by the excellent street markets in other locations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps best of all is the Sunday producers’ market in Piazza delle Erbe, aka Piazza Palazzo di Città. Star turn was the fresh pasta lady, who was enthusiastically offering tastings. I chose the goats’ cheese and caramelised onion.

The aforementioned wine producer was also happy to give tastings of perfectly decent Spumante, Dolcetto and Nebbiolo, mostly around €5 or 6 a bottle.

If food isn’t your thing, there’s a flea market, Balôn, to the northwest of Porta Palazzo.

On the second Sunday of the month it becomes the ‘Gran Balôn’ with seemingly endless stalls selling vintage posters, clothing, antiques, furniture, even bikes.

 

If all that’s not enough, on a clear day you can see the Alps from the city centre….

‘You can’t furlough fish’

ChalkStream Trout first appeared at Twickenham Farmers Market on 7th November last year, which was the market’s 20th Anniversary. I’m pleased to see they have started to attend regularly.

Unlike many other traders, Arthur was standing in front of his stall, engaging with anyone who showed an interest in his product.

He explained that the main thrust of the business had been to supply restaurants, which of course was impossible in the first lockdown, and was extremely erratic in the following months.

They had to adapt quickly to the changing circumstances.

As Arthur memorably put it:

 

‘You can’t furlough fish’

 

ChalkStream Smoked Trout Pate

 

 

Chalkstream Trout set about selling their products directly to consumers at farmers markets around London. They also sell online, and you can subscribe to their newsletter on the website https://www.chalkstreamfoods.co.uk/

As well as smoked trout, you’ll find fresh sides, whole small fish, fishcakes and a lovely paté.

 

 

A “Totally Swedish” Moment – putting together a simple Smörgåsbord: https://wp.me/p7AW4i-HE

 

We’re fortunate in Twickenham that we have Sandy’s Fishmongers, who were already a stockist. It was there that I first came across Chalkstream Trout, and mentioned the product in the post, ‘A “Totally Swedish” Moment’, where I suggested it as an alternative to salmon when curing your own gravlax; the fillets are not as thick as salmon, so the cure penetrates the flesh more quickly.

 

 

 

On that first encounter, Arthur asked for our thoughts about the market.

We’ve become increasingly supportive of the market since lockdown, in fact it’s usually the highlight of our week.

 

Twickenham Farmers Market

To make a good food market, you need the right mix of stalls, giving niche products their opportunity to shine without too much competition.

It should represent the staples of a weekly shopping expedition for fresh food: fish, meat, fruit & veg, baked goods, cheese & dairy. Most traders at Twickenham attend weekly, others come once or twice a month. Alongside the core products we have a stall dedicated to wild game, occasionally a local beekeeper with honey, garden plants in the summer, and at Christmas even an award winning English sparkling wine.

 

How can you get fish from a Haggis?

As well as having the fishmonger on Twickenham High Street, we’re doubly lucky to have a fish stall at the market.

The choice there depends on what the fisherman has caught that week in his day boat, the ‘True to the Core’, in the North Sea off Walton-on-the-Naze, on the Essex coast. You can be assured that the fish is as fresh as it can be, unless you live near a quayside.

The stall is manned by the fisherman himself, Gary Haggis. He usually has a queue, waiting patiently while Gary deftly fillets and trims to the next customer’s requirements.

 

Favourite Stall

Customers are invited to vote for their favourite trader in February each year. In 2020 this was awarded to Lee House Farm, who have attended since the market opened; Twickenham is now their main retail outlet.

 

Queuing in an orderly fashion for Lee House Farm

 

The farmer in question is Grant Roffey, who brings his organic lamb, beef, chicken and eggs to market, ably assisted by his sidekick Tom.

Grant raises feisty chickens, slow grown to maturity to maximise their flavour; they produce outstanding eggs which sell out quickly; it’s worth pre-ordering online. It’s pleasing to see local restaurateurs carrying away trays of eggs.

There’s also competition for less obvious products; you’ll have to join the queue early in the morning if you’re looking for chickens’ feet!

They make a wonderful jellied stock, rich in collagen. Freeze it in cubes to add body and flavour to your cooking.

 

If you’re squeamish, look away now!

 

Grant’s feet (so to speak….)

 

 

 

What did you do under Lockdown?

Lockdown was imposed in the UK on 23rd March this year

 

At first I followed the daily news conferences. It wasn’t long before I was reminded of the 1960s review ‘Beyond the Fringe’, and its satirical take on the Second World War.

The show featured the recollections of an air raid warden, played by Peter Cook, whose wife was glued to the daily news bulletins on the BBC, as we have been.

 

‘This is Alvar Liddell at the BBC, bringing you news of fresh disasters’

 

She relayed the momentous events of the day to him in the garden.

 

“I remember the day that war was declared”.

“I was out in the garden at the time, planting out chrysanths; it was a grand year for chrysanths, 1939. My wife came out to me in the garden; ‘War has been declared’ she said.

‘Never you mind my dear’, I said to her, ‘You put on the kettle – we’ll have a nice cup of tea”.

 

 

Waiting for news of fresh disasters

 

 

 

“I remember the day that rationing was imposed, and all that that entailed”.

I was out in the garden at the time, planting onions for our boys out in Ypres. My wife came out to me in the garden, ‘Rationing has been imposed’, she said, ‘and all that that entails!’

“Never you mind my dear’, I said to her, ‘You put on the kettle – we’ll have a nice cup of steaming hot water”.

 

 

This struck a chord

 

My response to a crisis is to lay in provisions: preserving, curing, cooking for the freezer, in case of possible shortages.

 

The garden soon resembled an allotment, as I secured a supply of vegetable plants from two of the few nurseries who were able to deliver.

 

 

The vegetable plot

 

 

The lockdown of 2020 was made more bearable by glorious weather, just as the summer of 1940 was referred to as “Hitler’s Weather”.

 

 

Inside I turned to the kitchen bookshelves

 

Food D.I.Y – ‘How to Make Everything’, by Tim Hayward, makes good reading for aspiring self sufficient hunter-gatherers, allotment warriors and sourdough fermenters.

 

I determined to set about making Salami. I ordered the casings on Amazon, along with the necessary curing salt ‘Prague Powder No 2’, and an electronic scale accurate to half a gram. Don’t you love laying in arcane ingredients and equipment?

 

 

Seasonings and Prague Powder No 2

 

 

I posted a picture of salted hog casings on Instagram, saying that their delivery was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to me that day.

 

 

Salted hog casings, ready for rinsing

 

 

 

Chef Alastair Little commented: “Wait until you attach them to the tap to rinse. You may have to lie down for a while”.

I’ll leave that to your imagination.

 

 

Pork and fennel mixture

 

 

Frankly, stuffing pork into the casings by hand was a pretty labour-intensive task. Back to Amazon for a set of sausage stuffing nozzle attachments for the second batch, which is hanging in my dedicated drying chamber (the shed) as I write.

 

 

First attempt at salame

 

 

Ten weeks on, we secured a supply of Italian bread flour (from Seeds of Italy https://seedsofitaly.com/ – it’s worth signing up to their mailing list, for email alerts when fresh stock is coming in) and the local deli has fresh yeast, so tonight the pizza stone is coming out of retirement.

 

More from The Exiled Scot

Linguine alla Filicudura

Filicudi is one of the eight Aeolian islands to the northeast of Sicily.

 

Pete’s ‘virus resolution’ recipe from Easter weekend:

‘For two I did’
200g linguine
1.5 tablespoons olive oil.
A handful of fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
8 -10 green olives, finely chopped
60 -70g of capers, rinsed and finely chopped
100g or so anchovies, finely chopped (or a small can of tuna, for the squeamish)
Cook pasta al dente in a good quantity of salted water. Keep back a cup of water when the pasta is ready.
In a medium sized pan warm the oil over a low heat, add the other ingredients and cook for 4 – 5 minutes.
Drain the pasta and toss back into pan. add the ‘sauce’ then add the pasta water, little by little, to the mix, turning it quickly to mix all ingredients.
Optional additions:
As they say in Scotland, add ‘a good dollop’ of
Ricotta / Mascarpone / Pesto, with lemon juice.
And garnish with pine nuts.
Yesterday I had made a nutty cob so it mopped up the juices.
‘Et, voilà – tasty’.
Editor’s note:
Garofalo and De Cecco are good brands of pasta, but in my opinion Martelli is possibly the best dried pasta in the world. Imported by Fratelli Camisa, the only retail outlet I’ve seen it in is Picnic Fayre in Cley-next-the-Sea, North Norfolk.
They don’t do linguine, but Spaghettini would be a perfectly acceptable alternative.
It keeps a good ‘bite’ when cooked.

 

 

gli Spaghettini dei Martelli
Similarly, you’ll struggle to find better anchovies than those produced by Conservas Ortiz in northern Spain.
They’re filleted meticulously by hand, cured in salt and packed in olive oil. I’ve never encountered a bone in their delicate pink flesh.
They’re imported to the U.K. by Brindisa, along with superb Tuna (as an alternative, for the squeamish).
Ortiz Anchovies

An exiled Scot goes fridge foraging

My cousin Pete was a senior officer in The Met; now retired, he’s no stranger to dealing with a crisis. 

 

Pete posted this as a comment to my post ‘Dinner in Murano’, https://wp.me/p7AW4i-Wg and I thought it deserved a wider audience.

 

 

“A ‘Virus Resolution’ from an exiled Scot, living under quarantine in rural Hertfordshire. A virus resolution? To try a new recipe each week.

 

Seeing the pulses shelf naked and ravaged in two local supermarkets, I scoured the larder and found green lentils. Fast forward to Delia’s ‘Smoked bacon and lentil soup.’

The vegetables in the drawer were looking tired so following the basics of the recipe, onions, garlic, leeks, carrots etc, I made the quantities she said (for six).

The jewel in the crown was adding shredded cabbage 15 minutes before serving for one meal, then we had two other soup lunches where no additional (dunking) bread was required. Finally we added suet dumplings for the final meal.

 

It is fair to say it tasted better each day and adding a blob of HP sauce rounded it off nicely (again, a Scottish thing)”.

 

‘A bit like natural yogurt on your meat dansak’.

 

 

 

Scoring the essential stuff online

Hardly a day goes by without a

wine delivery arriving at Palazzo

Amaro and Twisted.

In times of crisis, we all need to prioritise.

 

(Actually, some of the boxes contain foodstuffs).

Today’s came from The Spice Mountain.

 

My custom at the start of each year is to check my spices by smell, or the use by date, and get rid of anything that will no longer taste of anything in your favourite recipe.

The Spice Mountain pack their spices in usefully small containers, so they won’t turn to dust at the back of your cupboard.
A welcome consignment of exotic flavours

 

Vallebona

 

Stefano Vallebona supplies an impeccable client list, from The River Café to Le Gavroche.
Stefano operates out of a unit in an industrial estate near Wimbledon, which is open to the public, even during lockdown, but if it’s too far for you to travel, he offers home delivery, which is free if your order comes to £100 or more; no hardship if you use a lot of Parmesan, or their ‘special occasion’ olive oil.
Vallebona Sardinian Olive Oil
Stefano is Sardinian, his wife Naoko is Japanese, and the business recently started to offer some speciality ingredients from Japan, such as Wild Wakame Seaweed and Inaka Red Miso.

The Olive Oil Company

 

It does what it says on the tin, even when, despite careful packaging, the tin has taken a bashing in the back of a courier’s van.

 

 

Battered but unpunctured
My staple purchase here is Tre Foglie (three leaves), an extra virgin olive oil that is light enough to cook with, but has enough character to dress a salad or finish a dish. It’s available in various sizes, from a 500ml bottle to a 5 litre tin (£43.95, equivalent to £8.79 a litre).
5 litres of ‘Tre Foglie’
There’s a lengthy list of oils, plus other condiments including balsamic vinegar. On an earlier visit to their stall at Borough Market I tasted Vellutato, a white balsamic condiment, which I was promised would become my favourite for dressing vegetables and fish; its tangy sweetness has proved to be mildly addictive, and it was perfect on the first English asparagus of the season.
‘Vellutato’ translates as velvety or silky

And to drink?

 

My friend Gill drew my attention to the plight of a wine producer (a friend of a friend) in Tuscany; their client in Miami had cancelled an order, leaving them with a surplus of 8,000 bottles.
They came up with the idea of offering them to private individuals in the UK at a healthy 35% discount, with a modest charge for shipping. Naturally I went on line to take a look.
Once I’d got over the lifestyle envy, I ‘did the math’,
and worked out that an order for 6 bottles each of their Chianti Classico, Bianco and Rosato would cost an average of around £10 a bottle after I had applied the discount code, and they had included delivery.
My order was acknowledged immediately, they texted when the wine was ready for dispatch, and two boxes were delivered about five days later. I’ll let you know when we’ve tasted!
Tenuta di Monte-Ficali
Emboldened by this purchase, I browsed the list of Tutto Wines, the London agent for Argalà who distil an interesting range of gin, bitters and vermouth; I wrote about them a few months ago: https://wp.me/p7AW4i-kC
They also list the Verdicchio that we tasted and enjoyed at the recent dinner at Murano: https://wp.me/p7AW4i-XF
Argala Bitter, the thinking man’s Campari
Despite our best efforts with Monte-Ficali, the wine rack was still looking a little depleted, so I pinged off a small order by email: https://tuttowines.com/

Growing your own

This has proved rather trickier.

www.suttons.co.uk will take you to a virtual queue where you wait to access their site in a 10 minute time slot, so it’s best to have an idea of what you want before you start. If you create an account they will email you offers, from which I ordered a selection of chillies, and a collection of herbs, both from specialist growers. These are plants which would otherwise have been composted.

https://marshallsgarden.com/ will dispatch as and when plants are ready, I’m waiting until May and June for my beans, tomatoes and courgettes, but they’ve already delivered my compost.

 

If you want to have a go at seeds
http://www.italiangardenseeds.com/  are specialists who also deliver Italian food staples such as flour, pasta and tinned tomatoes. Like all garden suppliers they are struggling to keep up with supply and demand, but I received my order in a matter of days.
I’m not very good with seeds but I went a bit crazy before I identified suppliers of plants!
Tomato, salad and herb seeds….
…. and some green veg
All the websites have growing guides and tips for when and how to plant. Good luck!
If you live in London, and flowers are your thing, go to Plant Savers https://plantsavers.co.uk/
They’re a collective who deliver fixed price “bundles” of unspecified plants, with 20 litres of compost. They select from garden centres who are unable to deliver themselves, and again, the plants would otherwise go to waste. Prices start at £25 for nine plants plus compost, and delivery is free within the postcodes they cover.
£1 from every sale is donated to https://mealsforthenhs.com 
And finally

Who Gives a Crap?

At the end of the day, we all need toilet rolls. This company make theirs from recycled paper, or bamboo, they use no plastic packaging, and they contribute funds to building toilets for poor communities overseas.
Here’s the deal: you subscribe, and they deliver at the interval of your choosing, perhaps every three months.
(Minimum order is a box of 48. You could share it with a neighbour, or trade it for flour on the black market).
They also supply kitchen rolls and tissues. Prices are roughly comparable with the supermarkets.
Kitchen paper and tissues
Call me smug, but I subscribed before anyone had heard of lockdown. They have temporarily sold out, but you can subscribe to their waiting list.

The British Cheese Crisis

This is Graham Kirkham, the last maker of farmhouse Lancashire cheese, selling Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire at the Slow Food festival ‘Cheese’, in Italy, 2013.
Graham Kirkham at ‘Cheese!’ in Italy, 2013
In 2020, cheese makers in the UK have been badly affected by the Coronavirus crisis.
Food Writer Jenny Linford says Graham usually sells 1,000 cheeses a week.
Last week he sold 13.
Read  Jenny’s interview with Graham, and her list of local cheesemongers, here:
Please seek out and buy British cheeses from our specialist suppliers, or they will disappear.
In the absence of wholesale restaurant business, Neal’s Yard Dairy have scaled up their capacity to deliver cheese to private customers nationwide, and they make a point of highlighting producers most at risk.
They have sold out of their first Save British Cheese Selection. There will be another selection available soon. You can sign up on their website to be notified when it is released: